NASANasa has appointed Boeing and SpaceX to ferry its astronauts to the International Space Station, in a giant step toward returning human spaceflight to US soil. Since retiring its fleet of shuttles three years ago, the space agency's crew have been hitching rides on Russian transport - at a cost of $70m per seat - to reach the habitable satellite.

Nasa officials made the announcement at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, where the launches should lift off in several years' time. The space agency is offering contracts worth $6.8bn (£4.2bn) in funding for the first commercial flight of humans into orbit. Boeing has a history with the US space programme going back half a century. SpaceX is already delivering cargo to the space station. It is backed by Tesla owner Elon Musk, who dreams of colonising Mars.

A father and son forced a vulnerable man to work unpaid at their farm every day for 13 years, a court has heard. Darrell Simester, 44, had to work 15-hour-days living in squalid conditions at Cariad Farm at Peterstone near Newport, heard a jury. His family struggled to recognise him when they tracked him down in a "horrific state" with a chest infection, a hernia and calloused feet. The trial at Cardiff Crown Court is expected to last up to six weeks. Daniel Doran, 67, and 42-year-old David Daniel Doran deny charges of requiring Mr Simester to perform forced or compulsory labour between 2010 and 2013. The family of Mr Simester, from Kidderminster, Worcestershire, had not known of his whereabouts since 2000. John Hipkin, prosecuting, said when Mr Simester was eventually tracked down by his worried family in 2013 he was found living in a caravan which had been described by a police officer as "left to rot" and "unfit for human habitation".

Mr Simester slept in a rat-infested shed for more than a decade with just his horse manure-stained clothing for bedding - before being moved to a squalid and cold caravan with a broken door, heard Cardiff Crown Court.He was said to have washed himself in an animal's feeding trough, while the broken outdoor toilet he had to use would only flush with a bucket of water and a stick.

He also had to huddle so close to an electric heater for warmth that over the years the skin on his left leg had been scarred. After police raided the farm, Mr Simester told officers he had tried to leave twice - once after a spade had been thrown at him - but he had been caught and taken back to the farm by David Doran.

Late last month, certain voices began calling for a rethink of Ukraine's potential path. Instead of moving toward a Finlandization that many had hoped for, it would be better, some thought, for Ukraine to begin mimicking Kazakhstan.

To be sure, there have been reasons to congratulate parts of Kazakhstan's post-independence maneuvering. Led by President Nursultan Nazarbayev for the past 25 years, Kazakhstan has managed to attain some of the strongest economic growth in the post-Soviet space. The country contributed to NATO operations in Afghanistan, earned the 2010 OSCE chairmanship, and has tossed its lot into landing the 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

When discussing a potential Ukrainian repositioning toward Kazakhstan, some also cite Kazakhstan's record of ethnic comity.

Some 20 percent of Kazakhstan's population are ethnic Russians, gathered largely along the regions bordering Kazakhstan's former colonizer, and while there were small spouts of Russian separatism in the 1990s, the country's ethnic Russian population has been largely peaceable for the past two decades.

But scratch the surface, and you'll quickly find that Kazakhstan presents a model that Ukraine would do well to avoid. Astana has gouged civil society out of its social sphere. Media rights are a farce. Political opposition is all but nonexistent. The "domestic peace preserved" has come at a terrific cost — just as it has been in Turkmenistan and Belarus, both of whom, according to this line of thought, can offer Ukraine inspiration.

Kazakhstani, Russian, South Korean, Chinese and other film directors, producers, actors, actresses and guests opened the anniversary edition of the Eurasia Film Festival at the Republic Palace with a red carpet opening ceremony.

South Korean actress Kang Soo-yeon arrived at the red carpet event.

At the official opening ceremony, the Director of the Kazakhfilm film studio Yermek Amanshayev awarded famous Russian film director Sergey Solovyev for his contribution to cinematography. Kazakhstani volleyball player Sabina Altynbekova, a famous kawai, handed the award to Solovyev. In turn, the Russian film director expressed his gratitude to the organizers of the film festival.

“Russia would never forget your kindness and what Kazakhstan have done for great Russian painters and artists. Poet Anna Akhmatova, writer Dombrovsky and film director Sergei Eisenstein were saved here during the WWII. It is your great kindness that cannot be forgotten. But, most importantly it is the city of lively people. Receive my gratitude not only for the award, but for those life lessons and people truly international at heart who, when I was filming here, were showing the spirit of unity,” the film director said.

South Yorkshire Police Commissioner Shaun Wright has resigned after coming under mounting pressure over the Rotherham child abuse scandal. Mr Wright had resisted calls to step down from the Prime Minister and Home Secretary after a report found 1,400 children in the South Yorkshire town had been victims of child sexual exploitation since 1997.

He also endured a grilling from MPs and wasconfronted by relatives of abuse victims at an angry public meeting in Rotherham earlier this month, when he again refused to quit. Mr Wright was councillor with responsibility for children's services in the borough from 2005 to 2010, whenProfessor Alexis Jay's reportfound officials failed to act to stop gangs of abusers.

Russia's behavior in Ukraine and the accompanying litany of untruths told by President Vladimir Putin and his ministers have finally exhausted the patience of Western leaders.

This is a watershed. Western leaders had mainly chosen to disregard Putin's encouragement of a system which had progressively led to the capture of the Russian state by oligarchic interests. Commercial and political considerations in leading Western countries prevailed over voices inside and outside Russia warning of the dangers posed by a lawless system to its citizens as well as neighboring countries and the wider world.

Britain is a good case in point. Despite the virtual breakdown of its political relationship with Russia after the "polonium murder" of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, London's lawyers, bankers, accountants and PR consultants happily lined up to work for the Putin system. Law firms enjoyed particularly rich pickings servicing Russia's ruling class in the English courts.

On the face of it, this is compelling evidence of Britain's soft power and the respect in which its institutions are held in Russia. The openness of London and the pre-eminent reputation of English jurisdiction also attract Russians eager to find the justice that eludes them in their own country's courts.

Iva Nova, a St. Petersburg all-women folk-punk band, may have shrunk to a quartet, but its music has become more diverse and inventive, drifting further away from the typical three-minute song format. The band recently launched its fourth studio album "Krutila Pila," its first in four years, at a concert at Zal Ozhidaniya.

When guitarist Inna Lishenkevich quit in 2012, the band chose not to look for a replacement. "It is always difficult to replace a person, so we thought that we'd try to do without the guitar," said drummer Yekaterina Fyodorova, who formed the band in 2002.

"Guitar is a very obtrusive instrument, it's everywhere; it either plays solo or strums all the time. When you take the guitar out, there emerges emptiness. So it was interesting to fill it with some other little sounds. It became a new turn for us. I bought a sampler, which I have by my side so that I can add some sounds that I like, such as industrial sounds, noises, creaks. There is also more piano and drums now. The sound has become richer and more interesting for us."

Lomonosov Moscow State University has placed 114th in the latest World University Rankings compiled by British-based education specialists QS Quacquarelli Symonds.

The rankings, published Tuesday, are widely considered to be one of the definitive indicators of global educational performance.

Moscow's State University, or MGU, was the highest-ranked Russian university on this year's 11th edition of the QS list, climbing six places from last year. The university is the most widely acclaimed educational institution in Russia and was ranked the country's best by Interfax news agency and radio station Ekho Moskvy earlier this summer. MGU was also cited among the developing world's top 10 universities last December by the Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies ranking.

In all, 21 Russian universities featured on the list, which ranked 863 universities worldwide. Joining MGU in the top 400 were St. Petersburg's State University (233rd), Bauman Moscow State Technical University (322nd) Novosibirsk State University (328th), and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (399th). Topping the rankings for the third year running is the U.S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, which scored top marks across the board.

Britain's University of Cambridge and Imperial College London came in second and third place, respectively, with the U.S.' Harvard University and Britain's Oxford University coming in fourth and fifth place. The universities were ranked in accordance with eight different criteria: research, employability, teaching, facilities, internationalization, innovation, specialism and access.

In a book describing his experiences of living in the UK a Portuguese academic based at Imperial College London has some strong words about British culture, the Daily Telegraphhas reported. In the book he describes English culture as “pathologically violent” and criticises British boozing and uncleanliness. "When you visit English homes, or the toilets at schools or in student lodgings, they are all so disgusting that even my grandmother's poultry cage is cleaner," Magueijo writes.

Magueijo’s book is called “Bifes Mal Passados” which means “uncooked beef” and it has so far sold 20,000 copies in Portugal. There are no plans as yet to translate it from Portuguese in to English. The cover of the book shows a picture of man wearing a bowler hat standing in front of Big Ben.

As well as having poor standards of hygiene, Magueijo says the English are “always fighting."

"I have never met such a group of animals. English culture is pathologically violent” he writes.